Byzantine texts have historically often remained outside of or at the margins of canons of authoritative literature, even in Byzantium itself. The goal of this RT is to explore the dynamics behind the formation, perpetuation, and transformation of literary canons in and beyond Byzantium and their inclusion or exclusion of Byzantine texts (broadly defined to include the late antique period). Given the supreme authority of earlier (classical, biblical, early Christian) literature in Byzantine culture, what were the rationales behind, and who were the agents of, the incorporation of later—including (near-)contemporary—strata of textual production, for instance, in the school curriculum or in the liturgy throughout different periods and regions of the empire? What was the fate of Byzantine literature beyond Byzantium, i.e., in neighboring cultures and après Byzance? What are the reasons for its present-day absence from transnational canons and school/university curricula? The round table addresses these questions about canonicity in five papers that focus on different genres, periods, and regions and examine long-term developments through case studies.
Arnaldo Momigliano once said that the trouble with Byzantinists is that they all read different texts, i.e. there is no canon of Byzantine Greek literature. By looking at the circumstances of the development of national canons of literature, the arrival of the so-called ‘Western canon’ and perhaps also the renunciation of the canon (stale, male…
While Antioch was under Byzantine control in the 11th century, Melkite scholars in the area, largely clerics and monks, made a massive attempt to translate the Greek Christian heritage into Syriac and Arabic to serve their congregations. This paper will give a brief overview of the scope of this movement and its goals. I argue…
This presentation offers an overview of the Byzantine re-elaborations of the Trojan War legend and explores their reception in early modern Greek literature, with particular emphasis on the cultural milieu in which Nikolaos Loukanes composed his Iliad (1526). Although the Homeric epics had long occupied a privileged place in the Byzantine scholarly tradition, popular engagement…
The so-called M* recension of the Synaxarion of Constantinople took shape and was probably finalized sometime by the middle of the twelfth century. It came to supplant all other recensions during the late Byzantine and post-Byzantine periods. Its transmitting manuscripts number in the hundreds and, in effect, constitute the overwhelming majority of surviving Byzantine Greek…
Following an attempt to determine the probable date of the initial introduction of synaxarial notices into the Menaia — which included correcting the dates of some witnesses present in manuscript catalogs that had previously led to dubious conclusions — the focus will shift to a specific recensio of the Constantinopolitan Synaxarion designated with the siglum…